Board Shears

Our lab has two board shears: a green beast of a Vaggelli, and a smaller Jacques. Everyone in the lab has his or her own personal favorite of the two. While the Jacques charms me with its vintage style, I prefer the superior functionality of the green beast for actual cutting. The Vaggelli has a longer cutting blade (54″), a wider bed area (48″), an Imperial and metric built-in ruler, and an adjustable, lockable guard that is easy to use and also easy to remove entirely when warranted. The Jacques has a 40″ blade, a 26″ wide bed, an Imperial-only ruler, and its guard is fussy at best. But did I mention how charming it is? Using it feels like going back in time.

Our Jacques & Sons 40" board shear

No one around here could remember the last time the Vaggelli had its blades sharpened, and no records on the matter predate the current staff. So, since the Vaggelli hasn’t been cutting particularly square lately, we decided a sharpening and fresh adjustment was in order. We were prepared to pack up the blades and ship them off to the East Coast (at considerable expense) when we discovered that the sharpening company the HF Group uses, Jorson & Carlson, has a branch in Des Moines, a mere 45 minutes away from Ames.

Jorson & Carlson in Des Moines offers pick-up/drop-off services on Wednesdays, with a one-week turnaround for blade sharpening. They even sent us a technician to remove the blades, and he will also reinstall and adjust them after they have been sharpened. We experienced one small glitch: one of the screws holding on the top blade was stripped, so it took some assistance from FPM before we were finally able to free the blade. We packed the blades with foam in a specially-built crate for a safe journey to Des Moines.

Board shear blades packed into a travel crate

According to Jorson & Carlson, board shears need sharpening only about every 20 years with normal use, so it looks like we’ll be all set until 2032!

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11 Responses to “Board Shears”

I have just exactly that Jaques, refurbished in red. A plate on the bed side of the the clamp reads, “The J.L. Morrison Co. Toronto. Sole Agents for Canada.” A plate on the back guard (the one over the catch bin) reads, “J. Jaques. Manf. Worcester, Mass.” I’ve often wondered at the miles the shear has traveled over the years. Does yours have any plates like this?

Yes! In fact, I tried to snap a photo of the plate for this post, but the brass is so worn that it wasn’t legible. We have one brass plate on the back guard that reads:

John Jacques & Son
Paper Box Machinery
Worcester, Mass.

No other plates give a clue to the machine’s travels, however. According to Hilary, the Jacques long predates the building of our current lab, so we’re not sure when or from where this board shear came to us. It would be interesting to figure out when the Jacques company changed up the text on its brand plates, wouldn’t it? The addition of a son to the plate on ours suggests it might have been manufactured later than yours…

Audra, yes they are! We have a few different textile types to choose from (stretchy, non-stretchy, open-weave) and it’s very convenient to have them stored right on the boardshear for easy measuring and cutting.

I recently acquired a J.L. Morrison (Jacques) 30″ (with the same “sole agents for Canada”) which I understand came out of the U of T Press. Had to completely disassemble and reassemble it – can attest to the quality of build and design. Mine has original black lacquer and gold line work, including gold rose patterns painted in. I feel honoured to be the caretaker for a while.

There is certainly something special about these long-lived pieces of well-made equipment. On the one hand, they are practically museum-worthy, and on the other, they continue to perform beautifully and consistently. Compared with our modern gadgetry with its “planned obsolescence,” I find this sort of equipment a true joy to use. Enjoy your Jacques!

Those are rolls of textile (also called “crash,” “mull,” “cambric,” etc.) used in bookbinding to line the spines of textblocks. We have the rolls cut into widths or 4 to 6 inches, which is wide enough to accommodate the spines of the majority of the books we repair. We find it convenient to store them on the Jacques so they are ready for measuring and cutting.